I am as keen as everyone else to eliminate waste, and not throw away food. Yes, I sometimes cook too much at this time of year. It is very difficult to gauge appetites, and I’d rather have something left than nothing at all. How do you know if everyone has actually had enough to eat? We have a big family Christmas (on average there are about 17 of us), with two days of eating, drinking, jollity, playing games, singing carols and acting out a panto! Christmas day is spent in Feltham, at one of my cousin’s houses, and Boxing day is at our place near Maidenhead. We have traditional turkey on Christmas day, with lots of trimmings, and a fish or vegetarian alternative for one family member who does not eat meat. On Boxing day I make a casserole or something else hot with potatoes and vegetables or salad. We have this usually at about 3:30 after some of us have been for a walk, and others may just have had a few drinks in the pub.
One of the Christmas tasks is to make sure to use up all the left-overs. There was far too much cassoulet, so I gave some to my mother and we ate up the rest a few days later. I had also made Boston baked beans, so the remains of that became soup on Saturday.
What really makes me laugh is magazines and cookery programmes suggesting ways of using up left-over cheese and cake! Cheese is not left-over! I don’t buy a chunk of stilton and expect it to be all eaten up at once! The idea of left-over cake is even more bizarre! Even on my beloved Radio 4 there was a cookery programme discussing this topic. I had better not mention the name of the programme… Anyway it did not spoil my enjoyment of the episode. On Boxing Day I delegated one of my cousins (cousin once-removed to be precise) to create a Christmas tree cheeseboard. It was spectacular. You can see the picture of this below:
Mathilda did not use the stilton, so does that now count as left-overs? Thanks so much for the idea Ciara! I am thinking it would be possible to do different shapes, such as stars, maybe an Easter egg!
In my world it does not! I am going to try the cheeseboard again on New Year’s Eve, but I’ll have to do it myself this time.
Even more bizarre is the idea of left-over cake. Does anyone make cake with the idea of eating it up all at once? However, we had a funny Christmas cake incident this year, with a complete cake being left at our house. Paul loves fruit cake but I do not, so I rarely remember to make it. My aunt had already left him a huge chunk of home-made fruit cake, and then we found this complete cake in a box! It turns out that it was meant to go back to Germany with one of my other cousins, so that is going to be collected today. Here is the cake in question:
When I want ideas for left-overs, it is for those jugs of gravy, various vegetables from the Sunday roast, or bits of dinner left on the plate by my daughter. I always leave a meal for her to eat after her evening shift in the pub, and invariably she leaves half of it. Some might throw it away, but in our household that will probably become the basis of a lovely soup! Yesterday we had soup made from Boston baked beans and Jess’ left-over fish supper. Then in the evening we had cassoulet, not disguised as anything else. plus potato gratin made from left-over jacket potatoes and a selection of rosti cakes. We were certainly full of beans that day!
I regularly make a dish called ‘Shepherd’s Left-overs’ which is truly delicious! In my childhood we always called any mince-based dish with mash on the top, shepherd’s pie; we discovered years later that it should in fact be called cottage pie if made with beef rather than lamb, but old habits die hard. To make shepherd’s left-overs, you just put all your various meat and vegetables in the dish with anything else that is hanging around. Needless to say, I have a level 2 certificate in food hygiene, and am well aware of the critiera and risks involved in using food that is past its best! I just don’t do it! You could add some chunky soup, gravy and maybe even some curried vegetables. Then top it all with some mash or sliced potatoes. These could be second-hand or freshly cooked. If the three of us don’t manage to consume the whole lot in one go, I do then bin the remains (in the food bin handily provided by our local authority).
I am always amazed when I come across people who say that they never make soup. What else do they do with their left-overs, apart from make ‘Contents of the Fridge Soup’ ? I do of course make fresh soup on a regular basis, and I would never serve the second-hand version to visiting dinner guests!
The other left-overs which I never have, which are mentioned in magazines and by cookery writers, are jars of curry pastes, miso paste, mustard and so on. Why do these also count as left-overs? Am I alone in thinking the idea of left-over curry paste to be somewhat of an odd concept?
What do you do with your left-overs? Do you have left-over cheese, cake and jars of mustard and spice pastes?
Look out for the thrilling sequel to this article, on the theme of clothes and other stuff that relatives and friends leave in your house! What do you do with random jackets and shirts that no-one claims?!